6'2" Hellfire or 6'4"?

03-10-2012, 10:44 PM

Wanting to get a Hellfire.
I currently have a 5'8" Spitfire and it is by far the best and most fun board I have ever had. (only ride as quad, thruster feels like a dead fish???)
Thinking for my next bigger board a 6'2" Hellfire or 6'4"?
I am 5'6" short, 80kg, 48 yrs and intermediate surfer who lives in BALI. I am also lacking paddle power and want something that will get me over the edge on reef waves.

Yeah Wayde,
I'm 82 kg and ride the 6/4 Hellfire to help my 60yr old arms a little! Once on a wave I'd prefer something smaller, but the Hellfire is so loose on a good wave that the trade-off for good paddling power and increased wave count is well worth it. The 6/4 Hellfire is definately [sp] not as good a paddler as my 6/2 Dom.

But then you spend way less time on your feet [or more $ on a Jetski] so if u prefer surfing to paddling then get a board that floats u to at least the bottom of your ribcage. Good technique and leg strength and commitment go a long way towards managing a couple of xtra litres IMO.

yeah in less than clean conditions your right piha...i do ride way under volumed boards...ok for the top pros but for mere mortals (like me) it can make things less than relaxed when setting up and taking drops in tough/messy conditions...especially on low rockered boards...again, it does allow full performance on your feet but you have to get there first..!!..case in point...a recent session in challenging conditions with our very own NN66 had me repeatedly sprawled drydocked on the rocks from getting swatted on broken take offs as he FLEW past on a high volume firewire..(on which he absolutely shredded!!)...

For me its not so much the take offs and dropping in, small boards sometimes have an advantage because the tail doesn't get jacked up so high and vertical at that last critical moment. It is the long paddle outs and water movement issues that we often have to deal with at Piha with bigish surf and relatively gently sloping beach. Ocean Beach in SanFran is very similar IMO. I like surfing till I'm exhausted when it's good but I hate being exhausted after only one hour in the water! I do think having learnt to surf on single fins means you tend to rely on the rail rather than your fins for grip and therefore develop a more powerful style. On boards with more float u just muscle that ol rail a bit more and teach it who's Boss!

Comment

I think growing up in the single fin/twin fin era (or even the 80's thruster era) means you're also more attuned to turning boards with volume. Someone who started surfing after say 1992 never saw boards with adequate (imho) volume (freaks like Slater and top pros aside) until the last 5 or 6 years. Such a person may well look at a board like mine and freak at 'all the foam' (which I think is quite fine). Meanwhile someone who had surfed a long time before the wafer era looks at volume in a completely different way.

I personally think that we're now seeing boards return to a more appropriate level of width and volume for the average competent recreational surfer. Some people say "ah, go shorter with the wider thicker boards" and that's true if you were on the right volume to start off with. But I reckon many recreational surfers were on undervolumed boards to start off with, so they should stay around the same length when going thicker and wider, just to bring them up to the right spot.

I think growing up in the single fin/twin fin era (or even the 80's thruster era) means you're also more attuned to turning boards with volume. Someone who started surfing after say 1992 never saw boards with adequate (imho) volume (freaks like Slater and top pros aside) until the last 5 or 6 years. Such a person may well look at a board like mine and freak at 'all the foam' (which I think is quite fine). Meanwhile someone who had surfed a long time before the wafer era looks at volume in a completely different way.

I personally think that we're now seeing boards return to a more appropriate level of width and volume for the average competent recreational surfer. Some people say "ah, go shorter with the wider thicker boards" and that's true if you were on the right volume to start off with. But I reckon many recreational surfers were on undervolumed boards to start off with, so they should stay around the same length when going thicker and wider, just to bring them up to the right spot.

Just my thoughts, and not nearly applicable to everyone.

You got a point there buzzy!!!
Remember when all that started with Kelly ridding narrower thinner boards back in the 90's. Then everybody followed. Then he went back to smaller and wider and the tendency started to shift again.
Older patterns have been brought up and tweaked in search for inspiration and answers to an industry which was falling into "routine".

piha's right...i get away with it because i surf good reefs everyday...entry close to the wave, deep still water, and setups you just fall into with almost no paddles...well i did...lately i've gone back to open beach breaks with random take offs and moving water like at piha's piha, to get variety/spontaneity back into my surfing and to make myself work harder... and i am finding i get swamped on take off...hence the almost here MB...

us old farts do have an advantage with volume from all that front foot rail drive work we did on chunky boards with a forward wide point...i only hope i still have it after all this time on under-volumed back foot grommet boards...!!!

i went a different direction in that thin banana era...with all that rocker curve i was able to go up to 6'6 and load in the volume and still surf free-er and tighter than on the 80's boards...Nev shaped me some magic boards like that that i still put under my arm and vividly recall epic sessions discovering new ways to ride the waves...the way the younger crew now take for granted... of course mctavish, nat and crew had already discovered ways that we took for granted...circle of life..!!

Ah yes, very wise words from the Zen Master of minimal volume and physiological compensation for over-extended spinal complications! At the moment I'm TRYING to post a pre-Firewire, 6/10 long x 20" wide, photographic example of changing track by muscling the rail rather than swivelling around the fin cluster. 57 yrs old at the time, just a mere grommet, Costa Rica Circa 2006. But i cant figure out how to do it! Not sure if the problem is age related or Red Wine related but I will leave it to another day!